The First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has donated two state-of-the-art mobile clinics to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to strengthen its rural health programme.
The mobile clinics, donated under the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) Health Support Programme, were formally presented at a ceremony held today at the Headquarters of the Nigerian Customs Service in Maitama, Abuja. According to a press statement by Caroline Embu, Director, Information and Public Relations of NYSC, the Taraba State Government also received one mobile clinic at the event.
The statement said Senator Tinubu, who spoke at the occasion, commended successive batches of Corps Members for being drivers of the NYSC health interventions, adding that the donation of the mobile clinics would support the numerous medical outreaches of the Scheme, especially under its Health Initiative For Rural Dwellers (HIRD).
The First Lady added that her visit to Taraba State last year necessitated the donation of a mobile clinic to the State Government to complement its healthcare delivery efforts. Also speaking, the Director-General of the NYSC, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, described the First Lady’s gesture as a timely and strategic intervention that would significantly expand the HIRD.
General Nafiu said the Renewed Hope Initiative’s philosophy, anchored on the belief that “health is not a privilege but a right,” aligns perfectly with the NYSC’s mandate and ongoing efforts to deliver free healthcare services to underserved communities.
He explained that since the launch of the HIRD programme in 2014, NYSC medical personnel had provided free primary healthcare, maternal services, malaria testing, health education and disease prevention campaigns to more than four million Nigerians nationwide, with an average of about 360,000 beneficiaries annually.
He disclosed that in 2025 alone, over 6,300 corps medical personnel, including more than 2,300 doctors, were deployed to remote areas to improve access to healthcare.
He said the two new mobile clinics would greatly enhance operational capacity by allowing the NYSC to reach more communities simultaneously and treat tens of thousands of additional beneficiaries.
“What has been done today has renewed the hope of millions of Nigerians,” he said, adding that the donation should be seen not just as support, but also as a challenge to the Scheme to do more in extending government presence and quality healthcare to those who need it most.
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